Contradiction 1:
- (thesis) "This is a great game and a lot of fun."
- (antithesis) "We’ve been in 100% ‘make the game’ mode, giving us no time to enjoy our creation (I’ve snuck in a few hours, but always feel guilty about it). Now that we have time to play [...]" (BoogieBac August 28)
This first contradiction makes the most sense to me, because it demonstrates (I hope) merely poor judgement on the part of Stardock and not delusion or worse. The thesis appears to many people, myself included, to be false, and by some, Stardock included, to be true. Yet unlike many other people, the members of Stardock -- if Boogie's statement can be taken to be both representative and true -- cannot have had the opportunity to validate the thesis. It was not only the Beta-testers who did not test the game for fun before its release: it was the dev team itself. But it frightens me: No one played the game for a significant amount of time before release.
Contradiction 2:
- (thesis) "this game is a lot of fun; it is, as listed in the gamers' bill of rights, as near to being complete as it can be upon release" (Stardock implicit and explicit claim)
- (antithesis) "You should stop playing Beta 3c now, because it is still pretty awful” (Brad, July 27)
Even in July, we heard the mantra repeated yet again: “do not worry that you are not a part of beta, since beta testing is NOT FUN,” in fact, the beta testers suffer from painful haemorrhages etc. due to the horribleness of the game, etc. That was more than being coquette, that was true.
This contradiction confuses me the most. What are we missing? This cannot be merely poor judgement. If there was some form of miraculous transformation in August, one to a product to which the beta testers were given no access, then something has gone dreadfully wrong, since I (along with many others) missed it. Just before going gold, the captain calls whatever it is we can test “awful”, and then a miracle occurs?
Contradiction 3:
- (thesis) "the quality of this game is in large part due to the feedback of the beta team"
- (antithesis) the beta team was not given the opportunity to test "the game", but rather only segments of it.
or
- (thesis) "this doesn't feel fun / good / complete to me" (many beta testers in August)
- (antithesis) "it's a beta, not a demo!" or "the final version will be great -- trust us" (answer to above beta testers)
While doubts regarding the fun-factor of the game were voiced a few weeks prior to release, we were repeatedly told "It's a beta, you fool, not a demo!" Granted, this was voiced most vociferously and often by other members of the beta team with the largest ostensible loyalties, but it was also voiced by the development team as well.
Sadly, nobody actually tested the game. Now, people are. It appears that while there is a much higher percentage of people here on these forums who thoroughly enjoy the product / find it ready (not suprising, since this is the home of a vociferous fan base who put a lot of effort into this game in the last months), there does not seem to be an overwhelmingly large amount of positive feedback on this game so far. In fact, most reviewers have courageously and politely decided to wait, because they appear not to be able to get the game running well enough to test it.
I still do not understand why Brad did not want beta testers to test "the game" until after its release. I will not believe it was “market pressure”, for by Brad’s own admission, he need not fear the contingencies of capitalism (“One of the benefits of being a small, privately owned company is that we can focus on things for reasons besides quarterly earnings”). I still fail to understand how a game can go gold without anyone having tested it.
If these bizarre circumstances could be made transparent – what happened, during beta time-scheduling and planning? and why? – I believe a lot of the disappointment, confusion, anger, and sadness might be avoided. I am kind of in need of catharsis.
Contradiction 2:- (thesis) "this game is a lot of fun; it is, as listed in the gamers' bill of rights, as near to being complete as it can be upon release" (Stardock implicit and explicit claim)- (antithesis) "You should stop playing Beta 3c now, because it is still pretty awful” (Brad, July 27)- (WTF has to do one with the other? One if about a released game, the other about a Beta build.)Contradiction 3:- (thesis) "the quality of this game is in large part due to the feedback of the beta team"- (antithesis) the beta team was not given the opportunity to test "the game", but rather only segments of it.
- (probable reality) Beta testers were there in the early stages for game mechanics to be used, not to "test the game" or to balance it in the latest stage.or- (thesis) "this doesn't feel fun / good / complete to me" (many beta testers in August)- (antithesis) "it's a beta, not a demo!" or "the final version will be great -- trust us" (answer to above beta testers) - (probable reality) Beta 4 was not the game so it didn't reflect final product (not a demo) and Stardock had great confidence in their skills to properly deliver a great and fun game
If these bizarre circumstances could be made transparent – what happened, during beta time-scheduling and planning? and why? – I believe a lot of the disappointment, confusion, anger, and sadness might be avoided. Haters gonna hate so there would be still noise, Reasonable people would thank it though. In any case, it's impossible for Stardock to tell us about everything even if they wanted. I am kind of in need of catharsis. Buy some dishes. Smash them. Repeat as needed. If dishes are too expensive for your economy, break pencils or even papers. You can punch the wall too but... it's risky. Or just run like crazy and burn all the excess energy.
You're right, you're in need of relief. And nitpicking statements and assumptions is not going to make you feel better; it's just going to make you feel worse. Whatever valid statements you may have is going to be lost under the battery of vitriolic biting. So while I can appreciate the basic underlying sentiment, I really can't agree with the method or the rational.
Take a break and go do something else that you enjoy. Honestly, the best way to stop being angry is to have little fun and get away from what ever it is that is making you angry.
Thats all mostly because Stardocks BETA builds do system / mechanic tests, but not gameplay tests.
Looking back i think they should have taken the time to polish the game until february 2011 (under feedback from a closed testgroup). That would have given them time to make a good game into an outstanding game.
Wintersong, you can't be serious, can you?
Do you actually think that it was not a mistake to release the game without testing it, and that it would not have dramatically increased the fun factor if this cruddy period where the game is finally being tested?
You seem like a reasonable person, but again, you have no perspective.
Edit: I do not think the OP's post was vitriolic at all.
i get it, there's a somewhat mixed message. but i don't think it achieves anything to accuse people of double-standards.
really, just play the game if you're enjoying it, and make whatever constructive suggestions you can in the mean time.
As for my post, I don't state my opinion about if I think it was a mistake to relase it without more public testing or whatever. I simply state what I consider to be the most reasonable (which doesn't mean accurate or true, because I don't know that) reality based on the thesis/anthitesis. At least that was my intention. Your comment leaves me with the choices of you reading too much into it or me failing (as usual) at communication myself. The former isn't a problem, the later is.
I personally can say that I love the game and that I'm lucky that I don't have many problems with it (OOM if I play too long plus code bugs). Yet I won't deny the reality of a game that has serious issues for some legit users and that game mechanics can be improved. I won't enter into a discussion about which game mechanics and in which degree because I consider it quite personal subject. I could say that Dynasties need tons of work and that actual Tactical Battle DO feel like MoM (with the difference of MoM's being faster and having more skills). While I think that people may tend to agree with me in the Dynasties part, I'm not so sure about the Tactical Combat part.
About if the game had been better with more testing.... Yeah, sure. I think that's obvious*. Good testing would have helped this and any other game. But Stardock, by whichever reasons they had (including the ones they cannot share with us and which absence makes too difficult for me to really "judge" the situation), decided otherwise. And they are making the game. That I happen to agree with them or not is irrelevant for myself. In my case, I decided to trust them based on my experiences with them, even knowing that things like Dynasty were to be lacking and magic being a big unknown to me (due to my flickering presence in the last months), and knowing that Stardock is going to support the game no matter if good realese or not. And now, instead of focusing in the mistakes from the past, I prefer to think of the fixes/improvements of the future. Those can be changed, the past not.
If I were to blame something as ONE of the many factors about the actual relase and it's problems, it'd be "Overconfidence". But I'm not sure if it's accurate due to lack of information about certain things. But it's the general feeling I get.
PD daaaamn, wall of text** :/
* especially in hindsight
** er... "more good and proper testing = always a good thing", that is the basic idea of the wall
Don't punch the wall. Dry wall is to easy to break.
fair enough
None of those statements are mutually exclusive and therefore not contradictory.
Oh, and good job to the OP for lifting a bunch of loosely related comments out of context and jumping to unsupported conclusions. You sure you don't work for PC Gamer?
Actually you are wrong. The game was under heavy testing for months. The beta testers reported hundreds of different bugs/CTDs etc. Personally I reported at least 15-20 different CTDs, and ALL OF THOSE have been fixed. I haven't found more, so my game was absolutely stable, when it was released....as for the game is being dull/boring/etc....1. It's a subjective stuff ; 2. Take a look at the suggestions subforum. I am pretty sure that many suggested features will be coded in later on.
The commentary here is a great example of cognitive dissonance.
If you are reading vitriol up in the OP you might not know what the word means.
I stopped reading after a while, just seems to be too verbose for my liking.
I do think that parts of the game still require tweaking,but as a whole this is far and between a better game and more complete experience than the beta. Many times during the beta I wondered where the fun it as? But in my view the game proper is fun and relatively stable. Though, there certainly are issues that need to be resolved.
I would say it is feature creep. They had a nice engine and wanted to do dynasties, a rpg campaign, strategy sandbox mode, stellar modding tools, cool tactical battles, a kick ass magic system, an army builder and customizabel sovereigns.
Then they underestimated the time i takes to do all that., balance it and forge a game out of it.
In the end they put all in, but every piece onthe list is subpar to its potential (magic, army builder etc.), simply unfinished (modtools) or IMHO untested for any length of time (tactical battles, magic). It is heartbreaking for me to see that much potential go unused.
Oh, and it is not quite clear to me how they could release with that UI. Really, they did made Window Blinds and Fences and stuff. Even it is another part of the company ... get those guys working on the game UI.
I still play it alot and really hope they get to finish and polish the game.
This is a good post ....
Humankind is interesting . you can give us something good and we will complain about it, and you can give us a incomplete game and we will support it as good. I think the people who are tying to stop the constructive feedback somehow fear that the feedback will stop them from enjoying the game. I know it doesn't make sense, but what else is driving them to want to silence the feedback.
Heh, I could swear I read just the same OP when Baldur's Gate 2 launched (was involved in beta). Heck, I feel like this kind of disappointment the standard for any game that's more complex than Pong. Yeah, Stardock might have been a bit too optimistic when they planned how long the development phase would take. A lot of game developers are. But regardless of subjective "fun factor" the game does work, even at 0-day release version. That's what the Beta phase is really about.
If you don't like the game you can do a lot more constructive things than complaining. Refund the game and try another one instead. Though I get a suspicion that much of the hate stems from the fact that people don't actually want to let Elemental go. As with BG2 a lot of people seem annoyed at the details, not the core concept, and hope that the developers will keep sinking resources into it. Fortunately, that seems to be the case and the game is very mod friendly to boot. If you really want to vent then go praise the bugfixing modders. Better long term strategy and less pointless pain stuck on the board.
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